Artificial fuel



UNITED STATES PATENT. OFFICE.

DAVID E. BANGS, OF MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS.

ARTIFICIAL FUEL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 451,358, dated April 28, 1891.

Application filed December 29, 1890. Serial No. 376,113. (No specimens.)

-To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, DAVID E. BANGS, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of Medford, in the county of Hiddlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Artificial- Fuel; and I do declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

The invention relates to a new and improved artificial fuel; and it consists of the compound composed of the ingredients hereinafter named and composed as specified.

In the manufacture of my fuel I employ the following ingredients, substantially in the proportions specified: coal dust, sixty per cent.; wood pulp, nine per cent; pitch, six per cent; wood-ashes, twenty per cent; rosin, two per cent. paraffine or naphthaline, two per cent; soda, (carbonate solution,) one per cent. These proportions may be varied according as it is desired to produce a fuel capable of makinga quick hot or a soft gentle fire. For instance, if a quick hot fire-producin g fuel is desired a greater per cent. of pitch, rosin, and paraffine is used. The wood pulp and pitch serve to bind the particles of coaldust together, giving body and solidity to the fuel, and also adding to its heat-giving power. The paraffine or naphthaline give inflammability to the mixture and ignite the coal-dust and wood pulp, as does also the rosin, which serves, too, to further hold the ingredients together.

It is well known that where coal-dust is used, especially the dust of bituminous coal or charcoal, possessing a heavy per cent. of

carbon, the great objection has been that the fuel in burning gives off thick heavy smoke due to the escape of a large quantity of the particles of carbon which pass off unconsumed; but by the addition of, say, about twenty per cent. of ashes this is in a large measure prevented, inasmuch as they serve to hold the carbon, acting in the nature of a filter to the gases generated by the combustion, and thereby causing a much larger per cent. of the carbon to be consumed. They also serve to prevent the too rapid combustion of theinflammable elements, causing the fuel to burn more steadily and to throw off a greater and more constant heat. The solution of soda causes the formation of oxygen gas, which, combining with the other gases, renders the combustion more complete, also giving a brilliant and high-colored flame.

The ingredients are run through a disintegrator and treated with a jet of steam to make the mixture soft and pliable. In this condition it is pressed into blocks of convenient size.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The fuel composed of a mixture of coaldust, wood pulp, pitch, wood-ashes, rosin,paraffine or naphthaline, and carbonate solution of soda, reduced to a fine and plastic state and compressed into blocks, substantially as described.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

DAVID E. BANGS.

WVitnesses:

WM. F. GRUBB, C. A. KEITH. 

